Letter No. 67: Immigration reform now!

The Book of Deuteronomy’s passage that states, “Cursed is anyone who denies justice to foreigners, orphans or widows,” jumped out at me this week as I, like thousands of advocates, church leaders and immigrants, looked for hope in the midst of what has been a disappointing last couple of weeks.

“What’s the next move?” is the question many groups are now grappling with in the face of House Speaker John Boehner insisting that immigration reform will not happen this year. Can the discharge petition floated by Sen. Chuck Schumer work?

From my vantage point, it seems like the only real option to making immigration reform a reality. But there has to be a targeted approach. I suggest, Mr. President, the Biblical approach—with an election year strategy of course.

The target of the “curse”? The 40 of the 232 Republican House lawmakers who come from districts that are more than 20 percent Hispanic. Once you can keep your 200 Democrats in line to vote on a bill using the discharge petition strategy, then all that is needed are 17 Republican members willing to say yes to immigration reform, break party line for the sake of their seat and circumvent the Republican majority in the House, bypass the regular committee process and help bring the measure directly to the House floor while also bypassing the regular committee process.

Those most vulnerable Republican lawmakers with a huge Hispanic voting population in their district must be targeted now ahead of the midterm elections, especially in the states of California, Florida and Texas.

The time to ramp up the lobbying of these representatives is now, ahead of the midterms. Advocates too must get out the message for Hispanic voters, and all immigrant voters must use their vote to send a clear message to the GOP, which is paralyzed by a small fringe group led by a Canadian-born man who, I’m ashamed to know, has immigrant roots in Cuba.

But Valadao, Denham and Ros-Lehtinen get it. It is why they support HR 15, along with the 190 co-sponsors. We now need to add the other 28 to get to 218 and achieve a majority in the House.